With the advent of digital technology, more and more documents are generated in digital form, which facilitates easy methods of handling, processing, archiving, etc., even for huge numbers of documents. However, there are still many documents available in physical form (also known as hard copy) only, and these can only be processed in digital systems after they have been converted into digital form (also known as soft copy) by scanning in a digital scanner. Such a digital scanner may be connected to a network, so that it has access to a workstation or a bulk storage device for storing the scan data file there.
In recent times, bulk scanning services have developed, that offer scanning and archiving of large collections of documents, such as complete “paper” archives. In such services, it is important that the actual scanning procedure is fast and simple, such that large numbers of different documents can be processed in a short time.
Several methods of automating the storage or further processing of scan data files have already been proposed.
For instance, published European Patent Application, Publication No. EP-A 0 757 311, discloses a scanner that has means for connecting to a computer network to which a plurality of computers are connected. The scanner has access to the file structure of the computers and the operator of the scanner can in this way select a specific directory for the storage of a scan file. When a large number of documents must be scanned and stored in different directories, logging in to many different directories or computers slows down the scanning process.
Published European Patent Application, Publication No. EP-A 0 756 414, discloses a network system including a scanner and a file server. The file server manages a file structure of dedicated directories, including personal directories of office workers and directories connected to a specific service, such as for copying or facsimile transmission. In use, an operator keys in a code number assigned to one of the directories, and starts the scan process. The scanner then connects to the specific directory in the server, performs the scan and stores the scan data in that directory. In the case of a functionally-connected directory, the scan data are then automatically routed to the connected service. Also, personally preferred scan process settings can be stored in advance in the personal directory of an operator. Upon scanning, the settings are read and imported from the relevant personal directory.
A disadvantage of this system is that a network connection must be made to the file server before a scan session can be started, because routing to any further handling in the server is essentially performed in the scanner. In other words, the infrastructure of the data generation (the scanner) and that of the data processing (the file server) are interwoven, which may give rise to unexpected interactions and prevents a clear separation of responsibilities.